Chapter 27 Dex - Past
twenty-seven
Dex - Past
RABBIT IN THE SHEETS, FIRE IN THE STREETS.
The nightmares didn’t come for me. With Jonah’s body against mine, I slept deeper and more peacefully than I could ever remember doing before.
When my eyes opened to the early-morning sun leaking in between half-closed curtains, I knew it was later than the usual time I’d wake up. I didn’t even set alarms anymore, because I never slept in, yet here with Jonah I didn’t even have to try.
I just had to hope he wouldn’t run from me again when he woke up to realize he’d spent the night.
Yesterday’s progress extended far deeper than sexual.
He’d let me into his soul as well as his body, and I so desperately wanted to carve out a home for myself there in the depths of him.
I wanted to live in his soul, let it soothe what was lost of mine.
It didn’t matter that I’d be late for work—if I wasn’t already. I didn’t dare move in case he took this away from me again. I wanted to soak up as much of him as I could so it’d sustain me for the time we had to be apart.
By the time Jonah stirred beside me, I’d been lying there for hours, just holding him, watching him sleep, committing him to memory. I was no artist, but I could paint a picture of him with my eyes closed from how deeply I’d etched the image of him into my psyche.
Peaceful features twisted, regaining their sharp edges. His brow furrowed the way I’d expected it would, and his eyes opened slowly, as though waking up was an extremely difficult task and he had to fight himself to do it, both winning and losing simultaneously.
“Morning, Rabbit.” I spoke softly, bracing myself for the moment he’d pull away.
Jonah’s eyes finally focused, taking me in, and he surprised me as he softened again, letting his eyes close once more as he grumbled unhappily and wriggled closer to me under the covers.
His arm, which had been lying lax over me, tightened once more with consciousness.
His nose was cold as it burrowed into the curve of my neck, but I didn’t mind.
I’d give him my warmth. I’d give him everything.
“How are you feeling?” I received another incoherent murmur in response.
So, my rabbit wasn’t a morning person, then. I pulled him in closer, wrapping my body around him, my legs tangling with his until we were a knot of limbs, and Jonah sighed with what sounded an awful lot like relief.
He mumbled something else.
“What was that?” I asked, unable and unwilling to mask my amusement.
“Time is it?” he repeated, only slightly more comprehensible.
“Mmm, does it matter?”
“Don’t you have work?”
“I’m already late.”
He pulled back from me, that pretty frown twisting his features.
I couldn’t fight the way my lips tugged in a smile.
“What are you so happy about?”
“Nothing… I just… I’ve never had anyone in my bed in the daylight before.”
Jonah seemed to consider that for a moment, finding it agreeable before he snuggled closer. “You won’t have anyone in your bed at all anymore,” he grumbled, and my chest warmed at the possessiveness in his words.
“Except you.”
“Except me.”
“Because you’re mine,” I couldn’t help but add, and Jonah groaned into my neck. “Because you’re mine?” I prompted him again, giving him a squeeze.
“I already said I was.”
“I wanna hear you say it again.”
“You already know.”
“I do, but I need to make sure you know. Who do you belong to, Rabbit?”
Silence.
I roughly grabbed a handful of his ass cheek. “Answer me.”
Jonah gasped out a sound suspiciously like a moan, but he still didn’t speak.
I squeezed again, and this time it definitely sounded like a moan.
He rocked his hips against me, seeking friction for his cock—which was always significantly more honest about what it wanted than my rabbit seemed able to be.
“Answer me, and…” I kissed the side of his head that wasn’t hidden away in my neck. “I’ll make you come.”
Jonah groaned, and I gave him some time to think it through. “You,” he whispered after a minute.
“What about me?” I couldn’t resist provoking him further.
“Urghhh. I belong to you, Devil.”
“Good boy.”
“Fuck you.”
“Mmm, you first, Rabbit.”
Jonah shivered, his hips impatiently rocking against me again.
“Okay, okay, you’ll get what you want.” I pulled away from him, and he seemed unhappy about that until I grabbed his hips and rolled him onto his back.
The blankets slipped down my back, exposing us to the cold morning air, but it didn’t matter, because I was about to make my rabbit feel a different kind of heat.
As Jonah came undone from my lips, my tongue, my throat—writhing in my sheets and making the most beautiful sounds—I knew I wanted to start every day this way.
I came over his flushed, sweat-damp skin when I finished myself off, looking down at the beautiful mess of him beneath me, covered in my cum, my marks. I wasn’t ever going to let him be without my marks on him again.
“Time to shower,” I told him, spanking his thigh lightly. His brow twitched as he decided whether he liked that or was offended by it before deciding on both. I made a mental note for next time. “Come on. Up. Or I’ll carry you.”
His lip curled in annoyance, but he knew I fully intended to follow through and finally got moving, shuffling out of bed and coming with me to the shower.
When the water was warm, I pulled him under the stream after me, closing us in with the curtain. Jonah was quiet until I lathered up the soap and brought it to his chest.
“I can do it myself,” he snapped.
“I know,” I answered and continued washing him anyway. He gave me a glare that could set fire to kindling, but he let me continue. My soapy fingers traced the curve of his ass. “Are you sore?”
“I’m fine,” he growled, but he was still letting me wash him, clearly not hating it as much as he wanted me to think he was.
That was fine. Jonah wasn’t used to anyone taking care of him, so to finally have it felt like a weakness.
But he’d get used to this, and eventually he’d feel safe enough to ask me for it.
“You can be fine and sore.”
“I’m fine,” he repeated, softer this time.
“Okay, baby.” I waited for him to tell me not to call him baby, but he didn’t, just turned away from me so I couldn’t see his face.
I reached for the shampoo, adding some to my hand, and as he tensed again, I cut him off before he said what I knew he was about to.
“I know you can do it yourself. But I want to do it.”
“Okay,” he said quietly, and I let my fingers run through his dark locks.
I took my time washing his hair, and the tension in his shoulders melted away the longer I did it. When I was done, I tilted his head softly to the side, my lips tracing over the marks I’d sucked into his neck last night.
“I’m fighting at the pier tonight.” Words spoken softly between kisses. “Will you come over afterwards?”
“I’ll come to the fight.”
“I’d rather you stay away from—”
“I said I’m coming!”
I sighed. “Then just promise me you won’t put yourself in any danger, especially not because of me.”
“What if that fuckhead says something again?”
I loved seeing him angry on my behalf. “Then you tell me and I’ll fuck him up myself. Okay?”
“Mnn.”
“Promise you won’t get involved?”
Jonah groaned. “Fine.”
“Thank you.”
I washed myself, not nearly as carefully as I’d washed him, and turned the water off, stepping out to get us towels.
When we were back in my room and dressed, I made sure Jonah put my jacket on again. I liked seeing him in it.
“I’m going to fuck you while you wear this next time,” I told him, and his cheeks immediately flushed pink, his brow furrowed, and he tried to make himself look angry about it.
“When’s next time?” He sounded so pouty it took all my self-control not to strip right now and throw him back on my bed.
“Tonight?”
Jonah nodded.
“I gotta go to work. I’ll see you there, then?”
He nodded again.
“You can stay here as long as you want to,” I told him, circling my arms around him again, and his eyes widened in shock as he looked up at me.
“You’d let me just stay here without you?”
“I doubt you’re gonna rob me, Rabbit, and if you wanted to, I wouldn’t care.
” I’d give him everything I had right now if he wanted it.
“The spare key is in the dead plant by the door. Now, I really gotta go. Roy’s gonna be pissed off as it is,” I said, silencing any further protests with my lips on his in a kiss that was meant to be quick but ended up lingering, leaving me wanting more when we parted.
I groaned. “Okay.” One more kiss. “I’m going.
” Another. And one more and then he was shoving me.
“Get outta here, Devil.”
“Yeah, yeah. See you soon, Rabbit.”
After work, I made my way to the pier. Roy had been very Roy about my arriving so late. Just an “Oh good, you’re alive,” and then carrying on with his tasks, leaving me to mine and asking no further questions, the long, scrutinizing look he gave me enough to satisfy him that nothing was wrong.
Being a weekday, Bryce was thankfully at school, so I didn’t have to deal with him. Jonah probably should have been there too, but if he didn’t want to go, I wouldn’t tell him to. I’d leave that in Becca’s very capable hands.
As I pulled up and parked my bike with the others, I knew I’d have to deal with a fuller crew tonight.
Given what happened last time, Archer had clearly called in all the fighters this time.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the others…
I just didn’t like most of the others. The ones I did anything more than just tolerate—Bull, Cupid, Halo, Snake—wouldn’t be here.
Their value lay outside the fighting ring.
“Coyote,” said Raven, giving me a lingering once-over I didn’t much care for. As usual.
“Raven.”
“Still gay?”
“Last I checked.”
“Maybe we should check again,” she said, licking over black-painted lips.
“Pass.”
“Hmm. Your loss.”
“I’m sure.”
“Pity.”
“I’m sure you have many other men and women who’d appreciate your talents.
” I cast a glance at Reaper, already shooting daggers at me like I was the one flirting with the woman who’d sleep with anyone but him.
I didn’t blame her. Reaper was a creepy fucker.
I didn’t even know his real name; he just insisted everyone call him Reaper. He was a mean fighter, though.
As Archer and Henrik pulled up, I thought again about the conversation I’d had with the bulkier twin yesterday.
It was something I shouldn’t have been thinking about at all, but the thoughts rose of their own accord—what would happen if I tried to take over the Strays?
If Henrik did what he’d implied and somehow got Archer out of the picture, I still had no guarantee the rest of the Strays would follow me instead. Particularly Reaper.
As night swallowed the sky, and the sand was lit only by the stars and fires that slowly warped the barrels that sustained them, my eyes were more focused on the crowd than the fights.
I needed to find him. Not knowing where he was made my skin itch uncomfortably, like a junkie in need of a hit and Jonah was my drug.
Without him, I was unmoored. Agitated. Distracted.
There.
I breathed a sigh of relief as my eyes caught him from a distance, walking onto the sand with Becca.
He was still wearing my jacket. I never wanted to see him without it again.
In fact, maybe I’d replace all his clothes with mine.
He already smelled of my soap and shampoo after our shower.
I liked the way Jonah usually smelled, but having him smell like me satisfied a primal part of me he’d woken up.
His eyes found mine right away.
My honey-eyed inferno.
Becca had her arms folded across her chest as she caught sight of me, and clearly I’d earned her disapproval.
I wondered if it was the markings I’d left all over Jonah’s neck, or maybe it was just me as a whole she disapproved of.
Didn’t matter to me either way. She might have been Jonah’s best friend, but he was mine.
“Who’s that?” Raven asked, holding her pack of cigarettes out to me. I glanced at her just long enough to take one before looking back at Jonah, who was watching us with a glare.
“My rabbit.” I leaned down so she could light it for me. Raven took her sweet time, a knowing smirk on her lips as she stepped in far closer than necessary, hands shielding the flame from the wind as a much hotter flame burned in Jonah’s eyes.
“Rabbit, hmm? I’d go for something a little more territorial and murderous.”
Jonah kept walking, his limp faint, and I knew that was because he was doing his best to cover it. Becca reached for his arm to stop him, but he yanked out of her hold, continuing on his way. Coming to me.
The rest of the Strays and I were hanging out under the pier until it was time for our fights, smoking and drinking—well, I wasn’t drinking. Overall, we were causing a general ruckus that most people kept clear of. Not my rabbit. He had a point to prove, and I was going to let him do just that.
The moment I was within reach of him, he had both hands gripping the collar of my jacket, and he smashed his lips against mine. I smiled against them even as they bruised me with the force of his public claiming.
When he considered his point successfully made, he released me, shooting a glare at Raven.
She smiled back widely. Raven had never been easy to intimidate—came with being the only woman in the Strays.
She could hold her own against the rest of us, so she certainly wasn’t about to cower down to Jonah.
If anything, he’d just given her something fun to poke at.
“You should piss on him next,” she said with a sneer. “You know, just to really mark your territory.”
Jonah’s scowl deepened, and I saw that flame roar inside him—a lit fuse, and he was ready to explode.
I grabbed his jaw in my hand before he could feed her more ammo, turning him toward me to steal his lips again in a far deeper kiss.
My tongue sought his, found it, claimed it, used it until he went weak in my arms. A bomb successfully defused.